shaking his head, as he and Pettine
watched the film. "Can't throw a lick
against us and they beat us."
F ootball teams are inherently di-
vided, with the offense and the de-
fense existing like rival states within the
same country. They go hand to hand
against each other through the long, in-
tense weeks of training camp, and then
during the season. This internal compe-
tition does not always make for pacific
team relations. That's particularly the
case when a team is losing and one side
of the ball believes that the other isn't
doing its part. Since Ryan's arrival in
New York, the Jets' defense has ranked
in the top five in the league every year,
while the offense has been uneven.
A durable football stereotype holds
that offensive players and coaches tend
to be cerebral, while defenders just want
to break your face. At the beginning
of last season, Bill Callahan, who was
at that time the Jets' offensive-line coach
and is now the Dallas Cowboys' offen-
sive coördinator, described his Jets de-
fensive colleagues across the hall as jolly
pirates: "Those guys over there dock
anywhere, hooting and hollering. They
think we're sitting here overthinking ev-
erything, overdoing everything." After
the Broncos game, there was tension
that hardened into animosity. One de-
fensive coach believed that the offensive
coördinator, Brian Schottenheimer,
wanted to "reinvent the offense every
week," and, as the offense stalled, the
defenders were sometimes caustic about
"the other side." Schottenheimer kept
his head down, working most days until
2 or 3 A.M. "I'd be lying if I said it didn't
piss us off:" he said after the season. "But
we used it as motivation."
Things were fractious among the
players as well. Although football is an
outdoor sport, there are so many meet-
ings that a team can feel more like a
company. Any workplace thrives when
people enjoy coming there. At the begin-
ning of the season, two of the most pop-
ular offensive players, the receiver Jer-
richo Cotchery and the reserve quarterback
Brad Smith, signed with other teams; a
third, the fullback Tony Richardson, re-
tired. New Jets included a pair of star
veteran receivers, Derrick Mason and
Plaxico Burress, whose skills and de-
meanors were in bad decline, imposing
a sullen drag on the offense. On the de-
fense, the linebacker Bart Scott, a vi-
brant, witty man whose blunt, physical
approach to football makes him an on-
field extension of Ryan, had a disap-
pointing season. Around the facility, he
was alternately morose and evanescent.
Speaking to his teammates right before
the Thanksgiving holiday, Scott said,
"Be thankful. It doesn't last forever." His
remarks were illustrated by the plight of
two defensive leaders, the linebacker
Bryan Thomas and the safety Jim Leon-
hard, who were lost to severe leg injuries.
The most corrosive differences in-
volved the mercurial wide receiver San-
tonio Holmes. Holmes says that he
learned his position by playing video
games, and, sure enough, he can emerge
so suddenly from a series of cuts that
there's the temptation to look for the
joystick manipulating him. Holmes
seemed disaffected all year, jousting in
the press with the offensive line, which
he blamed for allowing too much pres-
sure on Sanchez, and occasionally prac-
ticing at half-speed. In the last game of
the season, against the Miami Dol-
phins, the linemen purged Holmes
from the huddle, sending him off to sit
alone on the bench. By then, Scott had
cleaned out his locker in dismay. The
week before, the Jets had all but elimi-
nated themselves from the playoffs,
when a close game with the Giants
turned on a Tebow-like ninety-nine-
yard touchdown play by the Giants re-
ceiver Victor Cruz.
At the final team meeting, Ryan's
voice cracked as he declared, "I will get
better. Will you?" Overcome, he left in
tears. I'd spent the full year with the
team, and, looking around the room
at that moment, I suddenly found my-
self thinking back to all the strenuous
sixteen-hour days that go into the six-
teen hours of a football season. Almost
every person there resembled a man
whose fiancée has broken up with him
without warning. They were limping,
red-eyed, and spent.
In April, I visited Revis at his grand-
mother's house, in Aliquippa, Pennsyl-
vania, his home town. The other Jets re-
vere Revis for being, as Leonhard said,
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